Sunday, December 13, 2015

Staunton, December 13 – Widespread
corruption and human rights violations by Russian officials and force
structures are responsible for the rise of extremism in the North Caucasus,
regional experts say; and unless they are addressed, Moscow will face more
radicalization and ISIS recruitment regardless of how much force it employs.

Many Western analysts and an
increasing number of Russian ones have suggested that Moscow has itself to
blame for increasing radicalization in the North Caucasus and that it will not
defeat ISIS recruitment efforts there unless it does a better job in combatting
corruption and preventing officials from violating the rights of people in the
North Caucasus.

Igor Barinov, the head of the
Federal Agency for Nationality Affairs, opened the way for such conclusions by
suggesting that in combatting the influence of ISIS, it was absolutely
necessary to use teachers, psychologists and religious leaders to reach out to
vulnerable groups and counter any ISIS messages being sent in.

Other speakers echoed his position,
but as Faina Kachabekova of “Kavkazskaya politika” noted, “none of the government
officials for some reason proposes as a prophylactic to the outflow of
terrorist organizations to secure citizens normal conditions of existence.” But
if they didn’t, experts did.

Nukh Akayev, head of the Center for
Strategic Research, Analysis and Audit, said bluntly that “without corruption
there wouldn’t be any explosions or terrorist organizations.” It underlies
everything, and he added that “it is also one of the main reasons preventing
Russian from becoming a great economic power.”

“Yes, of course,” he said, there are
many important questions of education, identity of ethnos and of nation.” But
corruption is more important than any of them. He said he doubted that Russia
could fight corruption effectively because the elites are not prepared to go
after corruption among senior officials.

And Sergey Markedonov of the Russian
State Humanities University said that “domestic radicalization is occurring not
so much because of the Syrian situation as because of problems in the domestic
agenda.” Often administrative mistakes make radicalization more possible and
especially those involving human rights and their violation.

“When the rights of people are
crudely violated” in the course of anti-terrorist operations, then, the
specialist on ethnic conflict in the North Caucasus concluded, then “this
struggle frequently provokes radical attitudes among the young.”